Scoliosis is a deformity of the spine which can appear anytime during life. If a scoliotic deformity reaches dangerous magnitudes or is progressing, a surgical intervention can be proposed to prevent progression and/or correct the deformity. Alternatively, bracing treatments, which attempt to reduce or arrest any additional scoliotic progression, are commonly used in skeletally immature patients with moderate scoliosis. Otherwise, a patient with a mild curvature may simply be monitored to observe if any progression occurs. Over the last decade, a number of new less invasive surgical interventions have been proposed that seek to stop scoliotic progression without the need for fusion. However, such early surgical interventions are only justified if important curvature progression is anticipated. An important variable governing the incremental treatment platform of scoliosis is the progressive history of the spinal curvature. Thus, early detection methods that serve to identify scoliotic curves may greatly assist clinical prognosis and, consequently, improve treatment avenues. Such early detection methods will particularly help in reducing the number of patients presenting to a health professional for the first time with large curves for which a more aggressive treatment is required, considering that early detection of the scoliosis at a milder stage could have been treated with a less invasive treatment.
The present invention provides at least a partial solution to the identified problem.